Powys town's heritage saved after the town council came to the rescue of cash-strapped society

Builth Wells Heritage Society called in the town mayor Councillor Mark Hammond recently to tell him about their financial issues.

Councillor Hammond said; “They only have two years’ savings left. They have had to tell their landlord and they may have to shut the shop and then all of Builth’s heritage will go up to the archives in Llandrindod Wells.

“They said they could run the shop as a tourist information centre and community information hub.

“As a town council, this gives us an opportunity to do something to help out with tourism in our town.”

He told a recent town council meeting that the council would be looking at providing £2,000 a year to run a tourist information centre – to get it running to promote Builth Wells and the heritage centre would want a councillor to help them to get it up and running.

Councillor Hammond added: “I think it is an opportunity for us, if we are looking to get the town promoted and as Sustainable Powys takes over we are going to have to do more ourselves to promote the town.

“We could initially fund it for one year, talk to the heritage society and see how it would look and then reassess the situation after a year.

“The amount of work they have put in over 40 years to get all of the town’s heritage together is incredible.”

Councillor Hammond proposed that the town council works with the heritage centre to create a tourist information centre and promote it for the town.

Members agreed to give one year of funding of £2,000 and Councillor Hammond agreed to work with the heritage society for a year to get the centre up and running.

Secretary of Builth Wells & District Heritage Society, Sue Morrison said: “We are meeting with the mayor soon to begin the process of developing the tourist element so we hope to soon be promoting tourism in Builth Wells from the centre.”